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THE BOOK OF RUTH 




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0^^- BOOKS/" RUTH 





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"WITH A. SYNTHESIS 

WILLIAM AV^UAYLE 

ILLUSTRATED 



W.iHARTIN JOHNSON '^ 



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DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
214-220 EAST 23d STREET NEW YORK 



Copyright, 1910, by 
Dodge Publishing Company. 






©GIA27 30 •• 



THE BOOK of RUTH 

THE STORY 






HERE are many beautiful 
stories ; but one than which 
there is none more beautiful 
is the book called "Ruth." 
It was written long ago. 
Its author is unknown. It is hid away 
from the eyes of many who love noble 
books by being in the Bible, that library 
of thoughts and sayings and doings 
which make those both great and good 
who translate them into life. If "The 
Book of Ruth" had been printed in a 
volume by itself, and had passed from 
hand to hand as the writing of some 
sweet, unknown genius, people would 
have raved over it : as the matter now 
stands, few know it as a literary master- 
piece. Few have considered how per- 



V^ 






RUTH 
fume-sweet the story is, nor how beyond 
^ moonlight shines the light upon its barley 
fields. But not the less, there stands the 
touching, idyllic story named "Ruth." 
Its pages are full of witchery. Whatever 
stories fade and pass like moaning of 
autumn wind, this story will abide. It 
has in it love, and fealty to duty, and the 
quiet wonder of the harvest field and the 
sky, and the sound of sobs, and the sound 
of gentle laughter, and the wistful face of 
one dear woman, on whom to look is to 
have procxared a picture whose loveliness 
abides forever. 

Suppose we do this, — compare " Rip 
Van Winkle," "The Vicar of Wakefield," 
"Loma Doone," "As You Like It" and 
"Ruth," and see how the far-away Heb- 
rew idyll fares. These later stories all have 
that indescribable thii^ called atmos- 
phere. We see and feel the landscape of 
8 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
them. We see Rip Van Winkle losing 
himself in the blue of distant hills. " The 
Vicar of Wakefield" brings home-hurt 
and home-help to all our hearts. 'Tx)ma 
Doone'' brings springtime with its 
willowy song into the breast of all who 
company with Jan and Loma. "As You 
Like It" makes all the world a lover and 
all the lovers glad, and sings with forest 
madrigals to every lover heart. Ah, 
Rosalind! What these stories have in 
common are atmosphere and immortality. 
"Rip Van Winkle" is a tale of the 
new world. It haunts the Hudson and 
Catskills. The uplands, back-lands and 
out -lands are on the frontier. Beyond 
them gloom black forests, pathless, ob- 
scure, danger-haunted. Bronze panthers 
with bent bow at the fingers lurk, ready 
for the fatal spring. They are always at 
fury-point. The sunset owns this new 
9 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
w^orld, sunrise and all. Here men follow 
the chariot of the sun while it drives into 
the Western sea. 

This new world does not thrill Rip 
Van Winkle. He is phlegmatic, apa- 
thetic, inept to catch the lightning's hand 
and run across the world. Toil does not 
bathe his face with wholesome sweat. 
He sits and smokes; and the smoke 
circles above his head as lazily as even 
so lazy a man might wish. The furrow 
beckons; but he does not catch the signal. 
The new day waits; but Rip Van 
Winkle's eyes are holden that he does 
not see. The plow waits at the field 
edge, waits for companionship with fer- 
tility and industry to sow the waiting 
. fields w^ith plumed maize, the very 
^^knighthood of the bread-stuff growths; 
but this dozing, smoking lassitude does 
not regard the pathos of an unplowed 
10 " 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
field nor of an unused plow. His thought 
and his frame are contemplative, — con- 
templative of recreation. He haunts not " 
the com fields but the hills. His dog and 
gun and he, (he being most dishonored of 
the triumvirate) a set of vagabonds, go 
lazying to the Catskill's paths or lie ob- 
scured in Catskiirs shadows. That his 
children are barefoot and tattered, his 
wife scandalously clad and gifted with a 
scolding tongue, howbeit urged thereto 
by her vagabond husband, whose sole 
occupation is to be occupationless, — these 
things stir not the manliness of this knight 
of inactivity. The Catskills stand, blue 
like a haze a puff of wind might blow 
away, and their wa)^ are sinuous and 
their steeps are not over precipitous and 
their waters babble down rocky hollows 
where man and dog stop to drink, and in 
some shadow of rock and pine, they 
11 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 

twain, the gun between them, lie and 
sleep, to wake and sociably cook a rabbit 
which dog and gun have caught nap- 
ping. Once too often Rip goes from his 
field to the mountains mellow in the 
sun, and finds in a hid hollow of distant 
hills a company of Hendrick Hudson's 
fellow voyagers solemnly bowling with 
never a smile shining in their eyes, and 
stopping from their grave occupations to 
swig at a keg to slake a grave man's 
thirst, which Rip seeing, at the sign of 
the flagon, bestirs himself to sudden in- 
dustry, drinks once and again and yet 
once more, and then sleeps years plus 
years, when bearded, stooped, stiff-jointed, 
^^> r^itieserted of his dog as he complains, with 
jnusket barrel rusted and gun-stock 
^own rotten, he walks stiffly down from 
the Catskiirs hollow-grown trees and 
matted undergrow^th he noted not there 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
the night before ; for he thinks it is but 
morning of another day. He comes to 
his town to find himself forgotten, laugh- 
ed at, and with a battle for freedom lying 
behind him, fought what time he slept 
with gun loaded. He fired no shot for 
liberty — and finds himself arrived at a ^ 
worthless man's destination — ^^ 
"Harvestless." ^ 

The plot of earth God gave to me to till, 

I tilled it not; but let the morning pass 
AVhile dewy beauty kindled on the grass 

Its thousands lamps of wondrous flame to fill 
The soul with ecstasy. I heard the trill 

Of birds at dawn. I heard, but yet, alas, 
I heeded not. The clouds of dawning glass 

Their new-lit glory from the lake and rill ; — 
All this swift like a vision passed; but I 

Nor plowed nor sowed. The brown earth 
knew no toil ''>^^^ ^ <^-^ *^* 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Of mine. The while fair day swept by, the 
soil 
That yearned for sowing, yearned in vain. 
Gone by 
God's hour. No sheaf of gold is mine. 
The sky 
Bums red with sunset, Harvestless I die. 




But the woodlands, the skies, the 
paths, the pines with brooding shadows 
and music, the gullies thicket-grown, the 
purling streams, the shimmer of the hills 
and the beckoning of them, the Indian 
Summer dateless and melancholy, the 
wood-smoke climbing the fair sky with 
its blue incense, the tattered man, the 
"aithful though foolish dog, which wags 
ail and looks into its tattered master's 
face with a mute and tearful canine 
fidelity, the unplowed ^d weedy 
field, the broken fences, iKe disarray <rf- 




'V 




THE BOOK OF RU 
baleful indolence, the children ragged 
vagrant, and at the close, the deserted 
hoiise and the dead wife and the for- 
gotten man and the empty hands, — these 
are the shadow cast by the story of "Rip 
Van Winkle." In this new-world idyll is 
the blowing of a lonesome pipe like that 
of a forsaken shepherd on the hills ; and 
this sadness, the sadness of great things 
for the doing and the doing them not, 
gathers its Indian Summer on the hills 
and under the sun and over the fitful sea, 
we knowing scarcely how nor even why. 
Yet the tale, withal, is the weary shadow 
of a wasted life. We hear no song in 
"Rip Van Winkle." 

"The Vicar of Wakefield," as every- 
body knows who reads books at all, was 
written by Oliver Goldsmith, who with 
a flute for passage -money wandered over 
Europe. To the sound of his flute he 
15 



fcj' 




m 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
made his journey across those plains and 
and by those cities and over those Alps 
made iinforgetable by history. But of 
those vagrant days is no hint in this 
story of the hearth. No history from 
castellated height of mediaeval story, nor 
gray cathedral lording it over a land- 
scape as a mountain might, nor any city 
paved with stormy memories of siege and 
civil dissension and battle and empire, 
give faintest suggestion in this pathetic 
narrative. Goldsmith needed not to have 
passed from sight of the village steeple 
where he was bom to have penned this 
exquisite pastoral. I think it significant 
and gladdening that the larger sayings of 
the world are not travelled sayings — 
they are evermore soul-sa5nngs. We 
dredge the soul to get the heavenly 
heights. The deep things are not to be 
had by sight-seeing in however distant 
16 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
lands, but in sta5nng at home with the 
heart. Kant, who wrote as profound a 
philosophy, perhaps, as has brooded over 
any man since Rato's broad brow wrink- 
led to high thoughts, was not in all his 
life outside Kbnigsburg. " The Vicar of 
Wakefield" is what Goldsmith re- 
membered of his preacher father, and is 
a testimonial which a son, who was not 
harassed by virtue, wrote of his father 
whose worth it was that he made a 
habit of growing "the white flower of a 
blameless life." A wanderer's sweet 
memory of his home, — a son's deathle^ 
recollection of a father who was stronger 
and tenderer than any page of fiction, 
could define a Vicar of Wakefield, 

Here is a village quaint and small, a 
chiorch with gray walls centuries old, a 
manse beside it embowered in greenery ^ 
a village fading quietly into 
17 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
versation. The village preacher is calm- 
ly good and greatly loved, and sees his 
family grow like flowers. He has sturdy 
comfort in the hearthstone of his heart, 
nor ever hungers for the crowded wa}^ 
where cities cloud the blue, high sky 
with smoke nor leave a loophole for the 
transient light of one lone star. He 
loves this homely life and is satisfied if 
only he may so bestow his care as to merit 
the approving smile of the "Shepherd 
and Bishop of our souls." Things go 
well with him and his. Life is roseate 
^ at every edging of the sky, — until finally 
^ ambition enters the mother heart and a 
Q nobleman (forsooth!) comes slying a- 
round to kindle a new rose-tint on the 
vicar's daughter's cheek, which sl5ang 
^ around the vicar himself, with shrewd- 
ness not written in his looks but in his 
father's heart, looks on first with scant 
20 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 

favor, then with spoken hostility, thence- 
forward with deep and growing perplex- 
ity, then with manlike submission to his 
superior, his wife. We note and love his 
quiet manliness, his love of homelike 
wajrs, his distrust of tawdry habiliments 
and his averseness to living beyond the 
family means, his slyly tipping the face- 
wash into the fire, his demure simplicity, 
his observance of a beautiful hospitality 
and tenderness, his wild leap of heart- 
ache when on a day his daughter is 
missing. The mother stings the absent 
daughter with sting of woman's words ; 
but the vicar lets his heart lead him and 
is very gentle. He loves her, seeks her 
and loves her yet though she seems, to 
all eyes save his, polluted, fallen and lost; 
but fallen or no he loves her, and seeks 
her with prayers — and will until his life 
shall cease. The good shepherd seeketlr) 




V-2^ 

>; 




BOOK OF RUTH 
Calamities other than 
The 



THE 

the lost sheep. 

disgrace come. Fortune is lost, 
vicar is poor and homeless but not deso- 
late. He bears up manfully. He has in 
his heart the gospel whose praise, profit 
and help he hath so often valued in the 
J hearing of his flock. He is not grim, not 
stolid, not stoic, but human-tender; yet 
iron swords are apt to be afraid more 
than this preacher in an unnoted town to 
be afraid of calamity or disgrace. He is 
solely afraid of a soiled heart, and please 
God he will keep his life pure. His quest 
for his lost daughter never slumbers. 
He hears of her afar: he finds her: he 
loves her so that we do as the daughter 
did, weep happy tears. There is Christ- 
likeness abroad when this Vicar of 
Wakefield goes upon a journey. His 
daughter fades like a plucked flower. 
He finds to his heart's ease that she was 
22 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
married ; she was not wicked but deceiv- 
ed; and the good man makes a prayer 
of thanksgiving unto God which sounds 
like a psalm of David to the Lord. His 
daughter is heartbroken, not wicked; and 
her father has a contentment like that 
which broods above a summer sea. By 
the machinations of his daughter's ab- 
ducter he is thrown into prison because 
he will not take a price for a daughter's 
broken heart. He turns the prison into 
a church of God. He is the vicar of the 
prison. The gentleness which makes 
men great, is on him. ^A(^herever he is, 
all is bettered. The sneers of his fellow 
prisoners, what time he reads the prayers, 
abate. They are not quite devils though 
they are wicked men. And at the last 
all comes well. 'Tis the ''Book of Job" 
rehearsed once more, save that Job dwelt 
in a desert and the Vicar of Wakefield is 
23 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
the lost sheep. Calamities other than 
disgrace come. Fortune is lost. The 
vicar is poor and homeless but not deso- 
late. He bears up manfully. He has in 
his heart the gospel whose praise, profit 
and help he hath so often valued in the 
hearing of his flock. He is not grim, not 
stolid, not stoic, but human-tender; yet 
iron swords are apt to be afraid more 
than this preacher in an unnoted town to 
be afraid of calamity or disgrace. He is 
solely afraid of a soiled heart, and please 
God he will keep his life pure. His quest 
for his lost daughter never slumbers. 
He hears of her afar: he finds her: he 
loves her so that we do as the daughter 
did, weep happy tears. There is Christ- 
likeness abroad w^hen this Vicar of 
Wakefield goes upon a journey. His 
daughter fades like a plucked flower. 
He finds to his heart's ease that she was 
22 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
married; she was not wicked but deceiv- ..,., 
ed; and the good man makes a prayer ^ 
of thanksgiving unto God which sounds 
like a psalm of David to the Lord. His 
daughter is heartbroken, not wicked; and 
her father has a contentment like thatL 
which broods above a summer sea. By \\^1 
the machinations of his daughter's 2^-^ jf/^l 
ducter he is thrown into prison because 
he will not take a price for a daughter's 
broken heart. He turns the prison into 
a church of God. He is the vicar of the 
prison. The gentleness which makes 
men great, is on him. Wherever he is, 
all is bettered. The sneers of his fellow 
prisoners, what time he reads the prayers, 
abate. They are not quite devils though 
they are wicked men. And at the last 
all comes well. 'Tis the "Book of Job'' 
rehearsed once more, save that Job dwelt 
in a desert and the Vicar of Wakefield is 
23 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
a villager where the honeysuckles blow ; 
but both are loved of God. This story of 
the home, this hymn of heartbreak of 
life's every day, has smiled and wept its 
way into this world's love irrevocably. 
The sun will not set on " The Vicar of 
Wakefield." 

"Loma Doone'* is a romance of Ex- 
moor. It neighbors the hills and the sea 
and Bagworthy water. This is no 
village story. Not any church spire is in 
sight nor can you hear the ringing of 
Sabbath bells. This is mid-country. This 
is a farmer's story. It is a story of the 
fields, the hedgerows, the brook warbling 
by the house, the wheat stacks, the 
"pegs" which as Betty Muxworthy sa)^ 
I must be "slopped,'' and by Jan Ridd, be- 
times; the deep chimney where the 
jflitches of bacon hang at smoke; the 
cider, yellow as autumn sunlight; the 
24 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
sweet widowed mother with her wo- 
man's fear and mother love and care for 
everybody, but in particular for Jan, do- 
ting on Jan ; the waspish-tongued serving 
woman Betty, who rules the household 
with an iron scepter, but whose heart is 
yet a woman's heart and aches in chime 
with Jan Ridd's ineffectual love, and her 
fierce v^rhisper "I love it in thee, mon"; 
the quiet of the world the farming of the 
fields, the remoteness of the world heard 
of like a distant surf, a-sounding in the 
night; the forests, the hedgerows down 
which the robber Doones make thieving 
journey, the fearsome Doones in fastness 
in the hills ; the barefoot Jan who goes to 
get loaches for his mother when she is 
sick, the barefoot ascent of the climbing, 
slippy water and the finding of Loma at 
the top, — little Loma, never-to-be-for- 
gotten Lx)ma; the dawning of the faint 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Star of love, the growing of fatherless Jan 
Ridd till he came to be of giant propor- 
tions, his quaint simplicity, his gentle 
kindness, his purity, his bravery, his 
growing love for Loma ; his dream that 
will not die, his love which knows not 
any fear but climbs to the door of death 
for a moment and a kiss; his modesty 
which knows not itself modest, his lan- 
guage, rude with the rudeness of Will 
Shakespeare, poet ; his awe of the sea, of 
women, specially of the one woman, Loma; 
his sense of the wonder of the dawn and 
the night and the dark and of the lighted 
stars; his love of labor, his sturdy manli- 
ness which refused to be elated when 
knighted by the king; his superhuman 
strength which with one mighty twist 
broke an oak tree's arm to slay Carver 
Doone when that valiant (?) robber had, 
as Jan Ridd thought, slain Loma his be- 







.26 






|0°^ 



THE BOOK OF RU T H 
loved, and the rapture of love realized:^ 
when Jan Ridd, after a long illness in # 
which he comes near to die from the 
bullet of Carver Doone, murderer, finds 
her still alive. And so is the idyll of love' 
swept out into the summer land, the 
old summer land, the dear summer land 
of lovers who go as they will, God being 
with them and they with each other, and 
well content to have no other company. 
One only lack is in this idyll of " Loma 
Doone." I miss the voice of a baby. If 
there were children at the house of Jan 
and Loma Ridd we have not seen their 
faces nor heard their voices singing, nor 
saying evening prayer. But "Loma 
Doone" is certain of immortality. Such 
as have hearts and love God and folks 
and the out-under-the-sky, will love 
" Loma Doone" as lastingly as living. I 
read it in the winter when the winds are 
27 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
wild because it is spring banks and vio- 
lets when I am beside Jan Ridd of 
"Hexmore" and his fair Loma. He is as 
the country dweller seldom is, ever awake 
to the poetry of growing things. To 
him nature was not parable, but homely, 
daily talk. The sky's twilight drenched 
his heart like the dew and gave to him 
the gift 

" Of sa5nng things 
Too tender and too deep for words." 
I pray my God I may never grow so old 
but that "Loma Doone'* shall make all 
the bells in the steeple of my heart to ring 
with silvery melody. The wild life of 
the world, the joy in homely things, the 
singing of women voices in the country 

[^ house about the work, the laughter at 
the trivial jest, the holding hands — per- 

'"' "i5upetual lovers — ^the knowing no more than 
^o be content with daily mercies, the 
28 




o F k cr 



'!> 



ft 






THE BOOK 

rendering unto God the oblation of a 
gfratefiil heart because all good things are 
come when love is come, the holding the 
whole out-doors against the cheek for 
love of it — all these will make for "Loma 
Doone" a path of light, as one who walks 
a footpath toward the setting sun when 
skies are clear and Summer at its crest 
of wave. 

And then "As You Like It." This 
is once where I wi^ Shakespeare had 
named his drama by another name. Not 
to criticise. I could not criticise Shake- 
speare. How could I, and he so strange 
and majestical; but I wish. If he had 
called that incomparable pastoral poetry 
"The Forest of Arden," I should have 
loved that. There had I lounged in the 
shadows all the day, the dreamy delici- 
ous day, and far into the dusk and farth- 
er into the lighting of the stars, and then 
29 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
into the dark, and the heartache of the 
nightingale. Or had he named his poem 
of hearts and laughter "Rosalind," how 
had I loved that given-name for so sweet 
a poetry. That dear name might have 
been written in moonlight, and scrolled 
by the tracery of wandering vines. 
Rosalind! But not to bicker with The 
Poet, but to listen to him. If he wills 
to call his drama "As You Like It," I 
will name it "As You Like It;" Shake- 
speare's will shall be mine. He loved his 
mother, as you may guess, because he 
names this dreamy wood where love is 
lutist, after his mother, Mary Arden, — 
names his everlasting summer land, his 
eternized lovers' try sting place. The 
Forest of Arden. 



Shakespeare went barefoot. Be 

^certain of that; boys do not go where 

$ ^ red-head Shakespeare went, amongst all 

30 




€-^ 



%is^. 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
wild flowers and running streams, except 
they be barefoot. Barefoot came he 
quietly where he could slip up unbeknown 
on the violet, and lie so close that he 
would ever after know to call it "The 
dim violet " — ^name of all names now that 
he has called it so. And barefoot was 
the lad who learnt the mystic music, half 
odor and half sound, 
"O it came o'er my ear 

Like the sweet South that breathes 
above 

A bank of violets, stealing and giv- 
ing odors.'' 
He was a country lad and barefoot, to 
whom the violets and the wind whisper-' 
ed. Secrets intimate as these come sole-^ 
ly to barefoot boys with "morning face."| 
The Forest of Arden is as I like it, the 
idyll of the windy sky and of the swaying 
trees and of the wild flowers at blossom-l' 







THE BOOK OF RUTH 
ing, and of love at blossoming like the 
wild flowers. This Forest of Arden 
might be an5rwhere. Truth to say it is 
evenrwhere. M5^elf have seen its cool 
shadows, its mossy banks, its whispering 
waters, its sweet growing things, its in- 
vitation to be quit of care, its hospitable- 
ness to lovers and to love, its tree trunks 
which the lips of love had kissed, its day 
dawn which 

"Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain 

top," 

^y-\'^ its evening-dawn where daylight lingers 

loth to go, and night-time hastens eager 

to arrive, the lighting of the starry lamps, 

the misty spaces and the starlight sifting 

through branches which are falling fast 

asleep with the sleepy birds. Such 

Forest of Arden have I seen on both 

sides of the wide ocean, beside wajrward 

streams and among high mountains and 

32 . 



L/ 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
on wide prairies, and ofttimes in very 
hearing of the chansons of the sea. And 
always in The Forest of Arden were 
Orlando and Rosalind, Rosalind and 
Orlando, and the sweet dogmatisms and 
quiddities and sadness and song and tears 
and heartbreak of woe or joy, the mom- 
entous pathos and momentous regality of 
Love. Always Rosalind and Orlando, 
always listening to or writing poetry, and 
weaving dreams of moonbeams, and al- 
ways hungry for a kiss. 

So is "Rip Van Winkle" an idyll of 
the Occident beside an ever-waking, ever 
angry sea, and looking westward, ever 
westward toward grim, black frontiers of 
forest whose shaggy solitudes hide menace 
of wild beast and wilder men, yet for all 
an idyll with blue, dim distance, and 
haunting peace upon the hills. 

The "Vicar of Wakefield" is an 
33 



i 



7/ 




■^ 








THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Irish idyll; for Oliver Goldsmith was 
Irishman through all he was and all he 
wrote ; and this narrative of the hearth- 
stone is gathered like morning flowers 
firom his heart. 

"Loma Doone" is an English land- 
scape and holds an Exmoor man, sturdy, 
habited for toil but not for fear, full of all 
the happy wonder of the happy human 
heart. 

The landscape of "As You Like It" 
is an5nvhere, is never local, has no geo- 
graphy, has only topography. Nor old 
world nor new, nor sunset lands nor sun- 
rise lands. All the happy lands of love 
which lie between can prove the Forest 
of Arden to lie in their demesne. It lieth 
everywhere, seeing it lieth an5rwhere. 
Like Shakespeare, this Forest of Arden 



IS universal. 



&5' &r^ 'i WM 






HE Book of Ruth is of 
the Orient. It lieth in the 
land of the Morning Sun 
close against the dawn 
and hath a sunburnt look. 
Palpitant light bums on the empty hills 
and on the harvest-crowned valleys. In 
a vale in the Land of Moab are these 
graves; and on Bethlehem's hill in the 
Land of Judah is the wooing, is the wed- 
ding and the rocking of the baby, and the 
mother's song. 

In these Idylls here compared are 
the ends of the earth met. From every 
whither come the hearts that love, the 
hands that serve, the hearts that break, 
the joy^ that laugh aloud, rejoicing like 



X 




the seas. 



This sweet book 
35 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
hollow of Orient hills, crowded with a 
bewilderment of light. 

Let the book of Ruth walk into this 
midst. We feel the hush and share the 
heartache and the homesickness and 
heartsickness; we see the harvesting, and 
the clean summer landscape, and the ris- 
ing of the hot noon air, and house us in 
the comfort of the shade at noon beside 
the reapers and the gleaners where Ruth 
alone sits solitary among the throng. 
We see her brown lithe fingers gleaning 
golden ears; we see the shadows of the 
nighttime call the harvesters to sleep; 
and one lone woman wends her way 
- ^^=^^ r< along unaccustomed paths to a lone 
mother's lonely door. The stars arise: 
the reapers sing among the sheaves, the 
lovers come ; and love, old as earth and 
new as morning, has love's way. And 
lonely Ruth is lone and sad no more, for 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
in her arms a baby coos and calls. And 
Moabitess Ruth is ancestress of David, 
poet-king. Herself was poetess ; and be- 
fore her shine harp and sword — Poet 
David's harp and brawn David's sword. 
And, come to think of it, who among the 
singers of that elder day could have writ 
this prose poem, ''Ruth," save Poet 
David — of the sheepfold, and the dawn, 
and the wistful quiet of the sunset and 
the dawn of stars where, 
" Like a drift of faded blossoms 

Caught in a slanting rain, ^ 

His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp| 

In a tremulous refrain." 

"The Book of Ruth" is a pacific 
valley, sunlit and meadow-scented, lyings 
between the turbulencies of windy hills. 
Here broods wide peace : there beats wild 
storm. To read this drama of domestic- 
ity one would never guess that war was 
37 -^ - - #^^*% 






OF RUTH 
'yet alive. The peace is so profound, so 
sweet No battle tnimpet bellows war. 
I No spear obtrudes its ragged edge with 
wicked lust for blood. No neighbors 
engage in baleful battle. No relatives 
are doomed to fratricidal war. No 
soldiers' camp keeps watch fires through 
the night. War must be a tale that is 
told. Battle flags have forgotten how to 
float. The world has crowded a world's 
width between sanguinary warfares. So 
does the quiet of "The Book of Ruth" 
hold its argument. 

But let us tarry ere we haste. This 
is not, as it appears, the island valley of 
Avilion where comes not heat nor wind 
that blows in stormy moods, nor rest that 
wakens not to war, nor wrath that drags 
no sword from sheath, while time en- 
dures. This is not that island. What 
time of this world's calendar was writ up 
38 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 

on the wall when Ruth went gleaning 

sadly through the com? Hearken: 

"Now it came to pass in the dsiys when 

the Judges ruled." This is a blunder, a 

surly blunder by some surly blunderer of 

a scribe. This can not be. The days of 

the Judges were such as we shall not 

wish to have repeated in Israel's story 

nor in the story of this world. *ln those 

days there was no king in Israel" is what 

we read, and then there is set down in 

serious veracity what we need not be 

slow to believe, that — "Every man ^^^^^^/O^^^ 

that which was right in his own eyesJ' 

In stem words and true it is recorded 

that the land had anarchy within. And ^-^4. 

from a perusal of "The Book of Judges" 

we are assured that the land had wars 

without. 

This "Book of Judges" contains suf- ^pj 
ficient romance to stock endless centuries. i vvv 






EBOOK OF RUTH 

M There is sufficient interval of silence with 

the warrior's bloody finger pressed on the 



lips to insiire sky for imagination, and 
■ sufficient personal prowess and daring 
^^ running riot to make the warrior blood 
which runs in the veins of every man, 
bum like fire. Really, those hundreds of 
years when Judges were the guardians 
of Israel are filled with the din of war. 
A reader going through these pages, 
would set down at the close that he had 
been reading battle annals, nor ever need 
to correct his judgment. Battle broods 
near, as storms are always quick to 
gather round a mountain side. There is 
no place where we should feel it quite 
safe to travel alone, or sit down to rest 
and eat a little parched barley in the 
shade. The ruthless men, we feel, are 
ever near. That we see no foe, reassures 
us not at all. That he shows not his face, 
40 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
predisposes us to think him hidden at 
a turning of the road where he will 
measure spear with us or sheathe a lean 
sword in our breast. " Danger" is writ 
large on all this road. 'Tis a strenuous 
story, this Judges' reign. It is written 
with the stem and violent scribe-work of 
a battle spear. These men wrote not 
with pens but with swords, nor even 
thought a better method feasible. Those 
writers of fictive history who love the 
reign of Henry of Navarre because, then, 
manly sinews and ferocious audacity 
seemed ubiquitous, would find in the days 
of the Judges a time more thrilling by 
very far than those Navarre da}^ when 
the white plume waved and men had no 
fear to die. "They slew of them in 
Bezek ten thousand men" — so "The 
Book of Judges" inaugurates its cam- 
paigns. " The Lord delivered the Can- 
41 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
'' aanites and Perizzites into their hands." 
"^-Slaughter runs rabid as a winter stream 
^ at freshet. There is no mercy following 
along this path. "Surely goodness and 
mercy shall follow me all the da}^ of my 
life" was what w^as sung to music on his 
harp by the Poet whose sweet ancestress 
was Moabite Ruth; but that must be 
afterward. No mercy has stepped 
on this field of war nor on these high- 
ways among the fretful hills. "And 
Adonibezek said, 'Three score and ten 
kings, having their thumbs and their 
great toes cut off, gathered meat under 
my table,' *' nor did any one dispute his 
saying. Bloody mercy was king of those 
cruel da}^; and Adonibezek said on: "As 
I have done, so God hath requited me." 
And he held up hands with the thumbs 
cut off with the rude surgery of the 
sword. He shall not draw bow on any 
42 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
battlefield or battle day again. Ameni- 
ties were not citizens of those rough 
times. And the record with an even 
voice proceeds regarding Adonibezek 
with his dismantled warrior hands ; " And 
they brought him to Jerusalem; and 
there he died." It reads like a ruthless 
paragraph fi-om "Caesars Commentar- 
ies'* and reminds us how "the tender 
mercies of the wicked are cruel." Kind- 
ness had not come to live among men in 
the Judges' days. " Now the children of 
Judah had fought against Jerusalem — 
and had taken it — and smitten it with the 
edge of the sword — and set the city on 
fire, and afterwards," — what woe is in 
that grim "afterwards" — "Judah went a-^ 
gainst the Canaanites that dwelt in Heb-lf 
ron and from thence he went against the 
inhabitants of Debir; and Judah went^ 
with Simeon his brother and they slew 






BOOK OF RUTH 
the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath 
and utterly destroyed it;*' "and he drove 
out the inhabitants of the mountain." 
f "And the children of Israel went every 
man unto his inheritance to possess the 
land,*' >vhich on reading the incident a- 
part from any knowledge of evenis would 
^ ■ wear a pacific look: but as we have not- 
ed, the road to every inheritance was wet 
with the blood of slaughtered enemies. 
So does the opening of "The Judges** 
ring with war. Every man is a soldier 
and searching out his foe. And the book 
proceeds consonant with the iron proem,— 
this bitter battle proem. W^e hear not 
much of the singing of the sickles and 
the music of the flails, but much — so 
much — of the swish of swords, of the 
scream of dying men, or the curses of the 
dispossessed. The plowshare is not 
made of beaten swords; for the swords 
44 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
are all in active service, and, so far as we 
may understand the situation, are not al- 
lowed to rest. It is the plowshares which 
monopolize the rust. 

The book moves on in its surly 
humor. The enemies are many and full 
of venomous hate. The strife is every- 
where renewed. First one enemy rules 
Israel, then another; but there are ene- 
mies enough to go round. lisrael seemed 
to have no end of enemies. "And when 
the Lord raised up Judges, then the Lord 
was with the Judges and delivered them 
out of the hands of their enemies,*' or an- 
other vivid phrasing has it; "delivered 
them out of the hands of those that spoil- 
ed them." Hand and sword against 
sword and hand — and the fight has no 
surcease. "And Othniel fought against 
the king of Mesopotamia and his hand 
prevailed against him." "Eglon king of 
45 






THE "^^O K OF RUTH 
Moab gathered Amorite and Amalek and 
smote Israel, and Israel served Moab 
eighteen years;" and what that phrase 
meant none but those whose the bondage 
^was, could know. Imagination lacks 
passion to drink that cup of anguish. 
y "Then Ehud slew Eglon and made 
Israel free for a little space." But did 
not Moab hate Israel still? "And they 
went down and took the fords of Jordan 
and slew of Moab at that time ten thou- 
sand men, all lusty and all men of valor ; 
and there escaped not a man; and so 
Moab was subdued that day." With 
what relish is slaughter of hale men 
chronicled: "And Shamgar slew the 
Philistines with an ox goad," " and he also 
delivered Israel,'' and Deborah and Barak 
fought down " Jabin King of Canaan who 
mightily opposed Israel ; and he had nine 
hundred chariots of iron." General Sis- 
46 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
era succumbed to the treachery of Jael 
and lay dead with the tent pin through 
his temples, "and the Israelites/' we are 
cordially told, "prevailed against Jabin 
until they had utterly destroyed Jabin 
King of Canaan:" and then Deborah 
composed a song and Israel sang it with 
lusty lungs. "And afterwards Midian 
subdued Israel and encamped against 
them, and destroyed the increase of the 
earth and left no sustenance for Israel, 
neither sheep nor ox nor ass, for they.j 
came up with their cattle and their tents, | 
and they came as grasshoppers for multi^ 
tude, for both they and their camels wer€| 
without number" — so it seemed to the^ 
broken spirit of the starving, broken 
Israel— "and they entered into the land 
to destroy it and Israel was greatly im-)i 
poverished because of the Midianites, 
"And then the Amalekites 






THE BOOK OF RUTH 
them also ; and the children of the East, 
even, came up against them." "And to 
such a pass were the people brought that 
the children of Israel made them dens 
which are in the mountains, and caves 
and strongholds." Truly it goes hard 
with Israel. And Gideon, high man of 
valor, threshed wheat by the winepress 
to hide it from the Midianites. Then 
battle with Midian, and the lamps and the 
pitchers and the men, and Gideon and 
the Lord, and "The sword of the Lord 
and of Gideon" made Israel free men 
once more. "Thus was Midian subdued 
before the children of Israel so that they 
lifted up their heads no more." Battle, 
furious and sweaty and very bloody. 
War, war — and still war; and will there 
be any quiet ever? 

Then were there wars domestic— but 
ever wars. Then once more the Phil- 
48 -- 




V 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
istines and Ammon had their ^vay with 
Israel, so that Israel was sore distressed 
and Jephthah was the man of the hour, 
and celebrated his victory with sorrow 
deeper than death. Then again the Phil- 
istines subdued them for forty years, the 
life time of a man. And Samson 'was 
a vagrant warrior, fitful, ferocious, brave 
and weak. Then when Benjamin was 
guilty of horrible depravity, and Israel 
mustered to Benjamin's overthrow, 
"there were four hundred thousand foot- 
men that drew sword." Aye, the sword 
is still unsheathed and very menacing, j 
And "The Book of Judges" concludes as; 
it began with the drum beat of battle 
and the crash of swords and a wilderness 
of graves. 

Four centuries of lust of blood and 
arbitrament of shield and sword and 
spear and chariot, the camels trained 





W B 6 (^it O F RUTH 

M war, and the rude eloquence of strength, 

'and the battle-camp and tent and senti- 



nel, the hill-tops used for watch-towers, 
and the women weeping for husband and 
for father and for son, and ruthlessness 
over which the narrative gently drops a 
curtain lest we die of heart-break, read- 
ing the atrocious story. No place for 
sleep save the sleep of death, no going 
slowly along under dim light of stars 
fearless of any foe; for all the world is 
drowned in battle violence and plunder 
and rapine without recourse. There is 
no avenger of blood for the slaughtered 
iniK)cent multitudes. All war: no 
peace. The women sing their babes 
asleep to the minstrelsy of swords. This 
is the land of Fear and is patrolled by 
Master Perilous and Master Ruthless. 
"There fell a hundred and twenty thou- 
sand men that drew sword.'* Hear that 
50 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
casualty list and become chief mourner. 
But no interlude allows our sobbing to 
ease itself a moment. The era of the 
Judges, judged from "The Book of 
Judges," was one of tragic battle pro- 
longed through hundreds of years. The 
battle line is only in part visible. We 
see the armies which contend in frenzy 
on the hill-tops; but those men who, 
intoxicated with the sour wine of war, 
surged in the hidden valleys and 
maimed each other in maniac friry, 
we do not see. We infer them ; for all 
the hill crests are crowned with writh- 
ing companies of men who seem bent 
on dying, but reftise to die alone. This 
is not suicide but slaughter. The war- 
riors wrangle not with words, but with 
swords, axes, spears, arrows, rocks,; 
spears thrust in the eyes of conquered 
foes to make warriors harmless forever. 






THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Hands are tangled in matted beards, hel- 
mets are hacked through, skulls are 
crushed, heads are split like blocks of 
wood, with battle ax or sword. So, 
through the ascending dust of this dire 
battle we see the lacerated throng 
crowd every hill, and crush bloody way 
down into long valleys filled with death. 
The plain we behold is thronged with 
/^/!^ pitiless warriors warring for they know 
not what. The tents gleam calm amidst 
the bitter storms. The watch fires star 
the night with lights as far as human 
eye can see. Between contending 
armies slants a little valley where a 
stream babbles by day and dark. Piti- 
fully often it runs not water but blood; 
still it babbles on like some poor babe 
who sits unknowingly by its dead 
mother, and pla}^ with her hair and 
croons and smiles. The tara-tara- ta- 
52 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
ra of drums souncfe ever war, and the 
dust from the crowding feet lifts its dun 
cloud, a cloud not of the sky but of the 
earth, and the camels whine and the 
horses neigh and the shields flame like a 
city in conflagration, and the spears,? 
armies of them, catch the light and blind 
the beholders, and watchful bowmen 
stand with thumb and finger on the bow- 
string and arrow, and the dull tread of 
armed feet in swift advance or sullen 
retreat, the flight of arrows shutting out 
the sun with their swift cloud, and the 
fierce hurrah and the chariots' crush on 
chariots, and wounded horses littering up 
the path and pawing with dying fury 
many a soldier down, and the lift of head 
and wild survey of the field of war as 
many a horse calls like a wounded man, 
and men trampling on men, and chariots 
cnoshing men beneath their iron tires as if 
53 




iTHE BOOK OF RUTH 
r^Jmen were bits of straw, and the wound- 




y ed crjdng ineffectual cries for "water, 
rater!'*; piles of dead and wounded built 
|up into bulwarks behind which men fight 
pike fiends ; warriors, friend or foe, fallen 
across each other in sudden amity; mass- 
es wounded so that they pray to die but 
their prayers unheeded, and the camps 
sacked and their jewels taken and their 
wounded slain, stabbed with spears 
drunk already with slaughter, and help- 
less or lusty men put to death with grim 
laughter, and when a city stands in the 
way of advance, with gloomy walls and 
narrow slits through which the assailed 
peer out, and through which the assail- 
ants' arrows can scarce peer in, and the 
battlements manned with maniacal men ; 
and the victorious army halts awhile 
and lays siege and breaks the w^alls down 
with battering-rams, and on the assail- 
54 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
ants the defendants rain stones and fire 
and burning metal, and the wall is brok- 
en or scaled, and the defendants are put 
to the sword, and then if there are in an 
interior tower-house some warriors who 
refuse to come out to be butchered, the 
tower is burnt and all that inhabit it 
—women, children, men ; — and the smell 
of burning human flesh offends the air, 
and the horrid oaths of war-mad men 
drown out the wild cries of tortured folk 
burning in the tower; and the anguish is 
ignored or perhaps never noted, so usual 
it is; and then the victorious troop ;;^ 
tramps on with its whip-lash of swords, 
and the tendernesses which are cruelties, 
and there is no peace — no peace any- 
where. War, virgins outraged, babes' 
heads hammered against the rocks, wo- 
men left where lust hath slain them, — 
war, and the darkness of darkest nights J 






THE BOOK OF RUTH 
made lurid by burning towns which con- 
stitute a huge watchfire, by which tired 
soldiers sit and rehearse bloody tales of 
the latest fight — that is "The Judges." 
"No peace, saith my God, to the 
wicked. War!" 

It is said after Moab was subdued — 
And the land had rest four score years." 
And in some such breathing time a- 
mongst innumerable bloody frays, 
may have occurred the quiet wherein 
this story of Ruth had time to sow its 
field and gather in the harvests, and 
leave a quiet and safe path among the 
tortuous hills, where even the feet of 
lone ^vomen on their journey of tears 
could walk unhindered. Thanks be to 
God that even in the vast turbulence of 
those wild day^ of foray and cruelty 
there was some interval when the sweet 
business of being kind could have room 
56 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
for the display of its scant wares. The 
heart had always space for its uncontroll- 
ed wonder and its dreamhil poetry. " The 
Book of Ruth" can quell the anguish of 
storms. Here is calm enough to take the 
rage from angered skies. After "Judges" 
comes "The Book of Ruth;" and after 
the wilderness of blowing bugles sound- 
ing war in "Judges," comes the swing- 
ing music of the flails in ''^Ruth," and 
the plowing of the fields and the sowing, 
and the south wind wandering linger- 
ingly across the fields of grain that haste 
toward ripening, and the gathering of the ^ 
harvesters, and the songs of the festivals 
of plenty, and the rosy cheeks of women 
and the bearded cheeks of men, and 
the sweat which drips down the cheeks 
when the sun burns hot and the sick- 
les gleam; and the yellow grain wilts as 
flowers are wilted by the sun; and the 




OF RUTH 
'barley and the wheat make the faces of 
owners of the ground an abundant smile, 
land across shining fields rings the cheer of 
a land of plenty and of peace. Can such 
summer sunlight lie on any landscape in 
ij\j this grim bewilderment of w^ar? Has 
kindliness yet a place to be neighborly, 
and may loneliness anywhere find a smile 
of welcome and mingle tears of regret? 
WTien we thought there was no spot left 
for such hallowed processes of the heart, 
then the sweet quiet of "The Book of 
Ruth" calls our hearts to prayer. God 
has a place of quiet left amongst the 
windy wildness of the stormy hills. 
Thank God! Peace has not altogether 
and forever vanished fi*om the earth. 
The idea embodied in this idyll called 
"Ruth" must be that God has not alto- 
gether forsaken his world. 

In an age which had scant notion of 
58 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
the value of woman, is written a poem 
to womankind. The two chief charac- 
ters in this story are women, one old, 
one young, both widowed. The other 
character is a man, Boaz, middle-aged, 
rich, generous, manly, affable, clean, pure 
in thought and behavior, broad-minded, 
religious. You must like Boaz. Across 
the rippling barley fields you can hear 
his blithe salutation ring out like a quail's 
whistle over a field of growing com. 
You see him, you feel him, you wish you 
had been his neighbor. His is a hearty 
face. His eyes are keen and miss no- 
thing. They run over the faces of the 
harvesters and scan them thoroughly at 
a look. This is not the look of an in- 
quisitor, but of a friend. He sees a new 
face among the gleaners. She, he opin- 
es, is not native to Bethlehem. He 
knows all the Bethlehem folk, girl and ^ 
'"- 59 <^^ 






Hq&-=^^V^^K OF RUTH 
boy, women grown, and gray beard. 
And this face is not one of them. 

The girl is poor. She gleans a few 
handfuls of barley, meant to be her wa- 
ges for the day. On inquiry Boaz finds 
her name to be Ruth, a Moabitess, talked 

I of in the village because of her fidelity to 
her dead husband's mother. Boaz shows 
himself much the man in that Ruth's 
beautiful fidelity appeals to him. He 

I gives strict orders that she be not molest- 
ed. He speaks to her kindly; and his 
words warm her heart like sunlight. 
He is not abrupt but frank, and she feels 
that she has found a friend. She is lone- 
ly, and so sad, and a kind word brings 
her comfort which is like strength. A 
man's voice has in it a courageousness to 
a woman, and with woman's intuition 
and divining, Ruth knows here is a man. 
She tarries a gleaner in his fields while 
60 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
barley harvest passes to wheat harvest, 
and comes to feel herself, in part, at 
home. In Ruth lying at the feet of Boaz 
on the threshing-floor at night some pro- 
saic souls have professed to find some- 
thing lacking in modesty and woman- 
liness. Apologies are w^asted words on 
such. Those who cannot see the simpli- 
city of a pure heart are so remote from 
the fair fields of poetry that a moonlit 
night would have to explain itself to 
them. Boaz did not misunderstand 
Ruth; neither should we, if we were 
possessed of that poetry which was in 
him. 

He comprehended Ruth: he was a^/ 
man: he was a poet: he loved the moon- 
light and the smell of the new-reaped 
barley: he slept out of doors under the 
drench of dew and balm of starlight and 
wonder of the night. Ruth appealed to 






THE BOOK OF RUTH 
> him as doing not a questionable thing, 
but a beautiful thing. Nobody but poets 
should write commentaries on some of 
the Bible books. King David would not 
^ have misunderstood Ruth ; and we must 
not. She was simply a maiden heart, 
wise only in sorrow and in poverty and 
V chastity, and did those accustomed things 
as lovers betroth each other with a 
kiss. No word was on her lips. She 
lay at his feet awake, obedient to her 
mother^s admonition, and rose at dawn 
while the early morning light shimmered 
along the east. Ruth, daughter of chas- 
tity, how^ fair thou art. You can see 
her in the early light, with garment 
weighted down with measures of barley, 
bringing home a happy and pure heart 
and bread for the impoverished Naomi 
and Ruth. I pity anyone who cannnot 
see in Ruth chastity, worth, faith, love, 
62 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
loyalty, and hope, wrought into all-but- 
incomparable womanhood. 

The scene at Bethlehem's gate 
makes the world young again. Leisure 
and neighborliness are neighbors now. 
The hale voice of Boaz is breezy as 
breath from Ephr aim's morning hills. 
The colloquy, the results, the public an- 
nouncement of genial Boaz that the 
sweet Moabitess is to be his wife — all 
this we hear and see. Nothing escapes 
the eyes of this quaint narrative. 

Sad enough the sight is. All about 
Bethlehem is parched and bare. The 
time for harvest is passed ; but no sickles 
rang and no gleaners laughed among 
the sheaves of wheat and on the out- 
skirts of the sunny field. A succession of 
famine years has baked the soil and 
cracked the ground till the naked feet of 
hungry children crowd down the crevices 




\ 






BOOK OF RUTH 
^ as they run. The sky is cobalt but glows 
as if on fire. The well at Bethlehem's 
gate is dry, and blowing dust foams at 
its mouth. The sheep upon the Bethle- 
hem hills are lean, and pant even in the 
shadows. Bethlehem folk gather in tired 
knots and talk only of the drought. The 
one theme of these once thrifty villagers 
is drought, drought, drought. Families 
once opulent landowners are now reduc- 
ed to beggary; for of what wealth-use is 
aland baked like a potsherd— a land 
whipped with the bitter flails of famine? 
They are land poor. Servant and mast- 
er alike are at starvation's brink. They 
look dovioi this chasm, deeper than the 
ICidron's as it deepens towards the Dead 
Sea's brim. Famine — grim, surly, piti- 
less — ^is here, and as some somber spirits 
think and say — for somber souls are 
swift at saying— the dearth is perpetual. 
64 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
It cannot rain. Are not the heavens 
burned out? Are not the rain bottles 
withered with the fervent heats? At 
night there is no dew. You lie out the 
hot night through but cannot sleep. 
Night is hot as day, the sleepless think. 
The sick die at night. No breath of 
wind from the hills of Ephraim breathes 
down like the wafting of a prayer. Men 
and women and children haunt the sun- 
set to see if some dim cloud shall not 
shadow the sun's going down. They 
watch in vain. The glow of sunset is as 
the glow of noon, only a sun like a hiage 
coal, red as blood, lies on the hearth of 
the west and fairly melts the hilltops 
with its ardency. Sunset is hot as sun- 
noon; and midnight is hot as midday, so 
the panting, sleepless folks say each 
the other as they walk the mid nig 
streets or fields fainting for a breath 




THE 
air. 



BOOK OF RUTH 



A citizen of Bethlehem, Elimelech, 
has sold his land for a song. His wife 
has grown haggard with the famine 
and the heat— and his two sons — ^likely 
lads, but weakly from their birth— are 
all but dead. They can scarce stand 
even in the shadow. Their parents have 
had hard work to bring them through 
the ailments of childhood to this rim of 
manhood. They are in their teens, but 
pale at the best and never strong like 
other lads. They are like to die. And 
Elimelech and his wife, Naomi, had 
sobbed and prayed and hoped against 
hope through famine-smit nights and 
days; but now they see, or think they 
see with their parent hearts, that there 
is no alternative. If they tarry in Beth- 
lehem till another Sabbath, Mahlon and 
.!& Chilion will be too weak to walk to the 




r^ 




THE BO ^^^-^r^F^^ U' T* H 
land of plenty, and these Ephrathite 
farmer folk are so poor they have no 
money to hire a passage to a better 
country. 

And so with much sobbing, heard 
by the neighbors in the night, they 
rise early and begin their pilgrimage to 
the hoped-for plenty. Lrong before sun- 
rise they have looked sadly on the home 
they left. Naomi has kissed the wall 
where her little child lay when she died 
and has left the rain of her salt tears to 
dry there like a libation. Early as the 
morning is, Orientwise the village folks 
are on the streets and rolling hills. And 
those who stay and those who go give 
kisses and embraces, and sob aloud: 
"Shall we meet again?" And this once 
wealthy family has trudged slowly over 
the hills, stopping to take a last tearful 
and pathetic look at Bethlehem, dear 
67 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Bethlehem. Naomi watches longest; 
and those stayers fit home in the famine 
village, waiting beside the well before the 
gate see a last waving hand of farewell, 
the tear-wet hand of Naomi, and the 
family has vanished from the sight of 
such as loved and valued them. 

Elimelech has heard that in south 
Moab the crop is good and laborers are 
wanted and drought is not thought of. 
He thitherward joume}^. He cannot 
haste. Mother and children stagger at 
times, and must rest pathetically often 
beneath the burning shadow of the rock. 
And Naomi faints betimes with home- 
sickness and hunger, but, motherlike, 
thinks only of her sons. In her gar- 
ments, tied up like jewels for precious- 
ness, she has a few handsful of parched 
corn which the kindly neighbors took 
from their scant store and thrust into her 
68 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 

hands at parting. These she doles out 
to the fainting lads and the husband, 
who helps in turn wife and sons in the 
fatigue of the sad exodus. The road 
leads downhill. That is a mercy; and 
for that mercy when the day is done 
they four render thanks to God, who, 
though he seems not to hearken to their 
petitions, they still in heart believe has 
not forgotten them; he is angered with 
them, but will not hold his anger forever. 
They have no luggage. They are past 
that. Famine has taken all they had 
save a garment for each to serve at 
night for mantle and coverlet. 

They are so tired the first night that 
they fall by the wayside like wounded 
birds before the evening star has set its p 
quiet light. So tired! And then comes ^^ 
the blessing of dreamless sleep, and when 
they wake the sun is up and the ground 
6 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
glitters as fire. Downhill, downhill, the 
tired, famished family falters. At last 
the Jordan shimmers before their wistful 
eyes. The Jordan, thank God! Water, 
water! Their water cruse is empty, and 
shrunk with the heat, and once the Jor- 
dan reached they nm breast-deep into its 
murmuring waters with a cry of delight, 
and they lean and drink and drink ; and 
life begins anew. Thence onward it 
seems but a step to fruitful Moab. Their 
hearts are gripped with hope once more. 
Life looks glad as a ruddy day. "Renty 
and home," Elimelech says to wife and 
sons, though truly his sa5nng has the 
the sound of a song. They eat the last 
scant grains of parched com when they 
cross the surly mountain whose top 
fronts Moab's wheat fields, flashing gold 
against the sun. Then they fall on each 
other's neck and kiss each other's 
70 





C\r<^ 



J 



RUTH % 



.:^. 



THE BOOK OF 
cheek and fall on their knees and call ^ 
out together, like a single voice: "Praise 
ye Jehovah, whose face shines upon us!^ 
and gives us peace." Famine was be- 
hind them: plenty was before. God's 
hand rested upon them like a caress. 

All this sad story is shadowed in the 
witching telling of this old holy literary 
artist in these scant words: "When the 
judges ruled, there was a famine in the ^ 
land. And a certain man of Bethlehem 
of Judah went to sojourn in the land of 
Moab." Such beauty, such brevity, be- 
long to the artist souls of men. 

"And they came to Moab." They 
felt at home. Plainly they found the 
Moabites humble but wholesome folk, 
peaceful, neighborly, and given to quiet 
friendliness. When these starving re- 
fugees from Judaea's famine hills came 
tottering into the Moabitish borders the 
71 




\ 



^) 



^■M^. 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
wdcome they were accorded won their 
hearts. You may set this down as ex- 
planation why Elimelech stayed in Moab. 
The kindness to travelers, strangers, 
brought strength to their hearts, and of- 
ten on summer evenings, when neighbors 
met in groups on the streets ruddy with 
sunset, Naomi with woman's volubility, 
would rehearse, with laughter and tears, 
how when they were strangers these 
good neighbor folk had taken them in 
and dealt with them not as intruders but 
as friends. And so they tarried and their 
hearts were quiet. 

Taomi had grown strong: the lads 
grew like reeds that lined the Jordan's 
brim — and of course the father was well. 
He was so strong. Nobody gave heed 
to him or thought that he might have 
ailment. He had been health to the 
lK>usehold; and his stout arm had been 
72 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
sufficient strength to help their feebleness 
from Judah to Moab. But on a sudden 
he, the man of strength, fell sick, and lay, 
cheek hot with fever, all the Summer's 
day, and with the evening died. Then 
Naomi knew she had never known sor- 
row and had never tasted the bitter 
water of calamity. She thought of fam- 
ine as it had been a rugged dream and 
no disaster. Here was famine for her 
heart. She held her husband's head up- 
on her lap and sobbed his virtues forth 
to all the neighbors who came in to 
weep with her, "So sweet, so sweet," 
she sobbed, and when at last they buried 
him in spite of her entreaties to have him 
yet a little longer, she said her cup was 
running over-full. 

Then for her lads' sake she tried, as 
women do, to be brave. Her tears were 
in secret; and the boys saw only a smil-" 



^^3 









THE BOOK OF RUTH 
ing face when there mother welcomed 
pthem home from work and wooing. 
Some heartless woman neighbor said, 
"She is soon done with grieving," but 
she kept her heartache ; and the weari- 
ness of it almost made her die. And she 
was seen often now, standing upon the 
Moab mountains looking northward and 
westward, alwaj^ looking northward 
and westward. And her sons said, with 
a tug at the throat, " She is looking to- 
ward Bethlehem." But she lived in her 
boys. Their work and play were her 
work and play. "I live for you, my 
children," she would say, as all the 
widowed mothers since the first sunset 
of sorrow have ever said. "You look so 
like your father," was her sweet reiter- 
ant to her sons. Then they would kiss 
her fondly and reply: "You always say 
that, sweet mother." 
74 



0-- 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Then the lads were men! How that 
came like a surprise to their mother! 
They were babes, fairly babes to her, lit- 
tle tots clinging to her hand or garment. 
Men! Why, no, not possible, surely. 
But each son brought to their home, to 
greet the gentle mother, a sweetheart, 
then a wife. Chilion wedded Orpah, 
Mahlon wedded Ruth. And to them in 
their honeymoon Naomi flowered out in- 
to the poetry of telling of when she was 
first called wife by the dearest husband 
woman ever had. Now, Naomi had the 
faculty, infrequent among mothers, of 
loving and enjoying her daughters-in- 
law. She took them to her heart for 
daughters and was glad, for had she not 
always had a longing for a daughter of 
her ov^Ti ? Ofttimes she was not found at 
home, and came back at last with tears 
warm and wet on her cheek, and the 
75 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
family kne\v she had been weeping at 
her husband's grave. Sometimes slow- 
P traveling news came that at Bethlehem 
golden harvests grew again, and the well 
at the gate was full of water, and the 
land laden with sunny harvests, had for- 
gotten it was ever harvestless and parch- 
ed with drought. And Naomi wondered, 
if they had stayed the famine out, if her 
husband had not still been with her. 
Then her eyes could not discern the near 
and could only see the far. But she was 
happy, for all, with a sort of Indian sum- 
mer happiness. The joy of seeing her 
happy sons and daughters gave her lips 
a song sometimes when she knew it not. 
But the young men, like their father, 
grew wan and weak, and no physician 
could stay their disease. They had been 
weakly all their lives, even as babes, for 
"Mahlon" meant *' sickness" and "Chil- 
76 



THE BO 



K OF 



ion" meant "consumption 



RUT H^ ^^ 
." Their 



cough was incorrigible. Day and night 
they wasted away till there were two 
funerals ; and the grave of Elimelech at 
the village edge had companions. Three 
women wept there where one woman 
had been sole mourner; and Naomi of 
the widowed heart, and now of the son- 
less heart, sobbed her way along: ''I am 
all alone, all alone." And then she 
'would stumble in her tearful speech, fal- 
ter to her knees, and pray: "The Lord 
Jehovah help me or I die." And the 
Lord heard her and helped her. Her bit- 
terness was not all gall. The touch of 
honey was in the sullen drink. God had 
been her help in many years. She had 
not forgotten him. Elimelech, her hus- 
band, had died with the names "Naomi" 
and "Jehovah" on his lips ; and Mahlon 
and Chilion each had died whispering: 






THE BOOK OF RUTH 
"My hope — is — in — God; the living — 
God. My hope—." But for God she 
had died in her day-dusk of sorrow. 
# W^ith God she was not utterly bereaved. 
No one is. God is a very present help 
in trouble. The sobbing centuries have 
confided this secret to their broken 
hearts. Over her heart comes a great 
wave of loneliness and longing for home. 
If she could be in Israel once again a- 
mong her kinsmen, and see familiar fields 
and faces, her grief might be assuaged a 
little, so she fondly dreams. Naomi was 
very poor. Poor they had come fi-om 
Bethleh em to Moab. Poor she must 
make her return fi-om Moab to Bethle- 
hem. But her sore heart hungered so 
for Bethlehem and its gray hills that she 
could tarry no longer. Afoot and alone, 
trusting only in God, she would make 
her weary way back to the land of her 
78 



W"" 



THE BOOK OF I^'U ¥ M^ 
girlhood and the cradle where she had 
sung lullabies to her babes. The Bethle- 
hem hills tugged at her heart as receding > 
tides tug at a boat swung at its chain. 
The good-bys were all said. The 
neighbors have lovingly piled in the path 
of her going all the impediments they 
could conceive, but finding all unavailing 
bid her farewell. And her sons' widows 
go with her to the hilltop to see her on 
her journey, mayhap to go with her all 
the way. With sweet unselfishness she 
dissuades them from going. They are 
young: she is old. Their life is before 
them: her life is a shadow falling east- 
ward. All we see in Naomi makes us 
feel her an exceptionally fine nature. 
Sorrow is prone to selfishness and thinks 
little, or less, or none, of others, but all of 
itself; Naomi's grief does not obscure 
her sense of the rights of others. 
79 




^'^ /// 




^^^THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Though swayed with grief as willows by 
^,>the wind, she is thoughtfulness itself, 
^^To the young widowed women the old 
-widowed woman urges: "Stay; you are 
young. Love will visit you again. It is 
morning in your day. Tears shall dry 
from your cheeks, though not from mine. 
I love you now, and shall love you till I 
die. I go to my old home, heartsick as I 
am. You are in your own land. Abide 
here, where your own tongue shall make 
music in your ears. My land will speak 
a language strange to you. Cjo not, be- 
loved; stay; though to part from you is 
bitter as the grave." 

And Orpah kisses her mother and 
goes, weeping, back to her own mother's 
home, a sweet woman figure given over 
to the abandonment of grief. We shall 
not hear her name or voice again nor see 
her evermore. She has vanished utterly. 
80 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
Ruth, entreated, will not be entreated. 
Her lonely heart is such a loyal heart 
She has fallen in love with her husband's 
God The Infinite has got her by the 
hand and she must pilgrim toward him, 
"Thy God shall be my God," is a soimd- 
ing from a deep as well as fi-om a very 
true nature. Orpah kisses Naomi and 
leaves her; but Ruth kisses her and will 
not leave her. Her husband's mother is 
dearer to her than all Moab's land. 
Her mother's God answers to her broken 
heart. She will not let her mother 
wander out sad, bereft, alone. And 
Ruth said: "Entreat me not to leave 
thee; for whither thou goest, I will go 
and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy 
people shall be my people, and thy God 
my God: where thou diest, will I die, 
and there will I be buried: the Lord do 
so to me, and more also, if aught b^t 
81 



^c 










RUTH 
death part thee and me." 
^"^ '^' " So they two went until they came 

to Bethlehem." Sweeter things than 
.^eff^ that are not written. Scant wonder 
"^^ W' Ruth has gotten into poet hearts wher- 
ever her story has been rehearsed. You 
cannot forget a woman like this. The 
\ return of Naomi, bereft of sons and hus- 
band, had been made utterly alone but 
for Ruth. To Naomi's anticipation the 
journey was to have been made without* 
company: a sole woman making slow 
journey toward her fatherland with 
steps that faltered, with eyes that some- 
times could not see for weeping. Groing 
home! "Good-by," she said; "good-byl" 
Ruth clung to her. Her return is not 
companionless. She shall weep ; but she 
shall not weep alone. Commingled tears 
are less bitter than solitary tears. 

So these two take their journey. 
82 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
They are pathetically poor, yet they are 
more pathetically alone. Their loneliness 
drowns their penury. Along the valley 
they walk, talking. Talk eases a wo- 
man's heart. The blue mountains of 
Moab stand off at lonely removes. The 
more distant mountains are purple. 
Ruth looks at them wistfully. She shall 
not see them any more. And she was 
born to them. Morn and noon and 
night, they have filled her heart and sky 
since she knew to remember I At night 
their purple heights had glided solemnly^ o/J 
into darkness to wake again with morn- 
ing light and walk out into proud blue 
splendor. She had loved them all her 
life, but never as she loved them now. 
Naomi talks of Bethlehem, dear Bethle- 
hem. Ruth thinks of Moab, dear Moab, 
but says no word of the loss she feels. 
Silent tears fall swiftly, and she wipes 
83 



<c> 






f^ '^'"^ H E 



B O^y^ OF RUTH 
them hurriedly away with her lithe 
brown hand. There are sterner loves 
than the love of native land. Women, 

:^by custom, leave native land for a lover 
without the farewell of a tear. Ruth 

y leaves her land in tears for she is lover- 
less, but goes with her mother and her 
mother's God. Ruth is a pilgrim of 
love and of faith. She, like another, 
walked " as seeing him who is invisible." 
They made their journey alone. It 
was not over safe, but they were too 
poor to attract robbers and too sad to 
think of fear. They ate of the ripening 
wheatfield in Moab; for there the wheat 
was billowing gold along the plain. The 
harvest there outran the northern har- 
vest of Bethlehem mountain lands. As 
they walked they caught the golden ears 
and rubbed the yellow kernels out be- 
tween their hands and so satisfied their 
84 



t 



) 



,:,r^.S^'^^ 



THE BO 0-^^^^(CFF"~~^ U T H 
himger, and slaked their thirst at a clam- 
oring mountain brook which hasted from 
the Moab mountains far away towards 
the Dead Sea's silent sullenness. As 
they sat beside the brook, in the shadow^^ig 
of the rock, Naomi thought how she and 
hers had crossed that self-same stream : 
then the pain and loss overwhelmed her 
and she sobbed aloud — and looked to- 
ward the land of Bethlehem. Ruth 
sobbed in imison — and looked toward the 
hills of Moab's land. 

Then once more they took their 
way. Down deep ravines, stooping to 
drink out of the rushing brook; past 
steep places where shadows lurk till 
noon has almost come, up gentle acclivit- 
ies which seemed meant for tired feet 
and tired hearts — and then Naomi 
caught Ruth's hand with a cry and sang 
out like laughter: *The Jordan!" There 
85 




\ 




yW/:: 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
it lay, a line of smirched silver far below. 
Beyond, the yellow hills of Israel climbed 
to a sky all ameth37st. Southward, 
there lay the all-but-level Moab mount- 
ains, so blue and beautiful, built like a 
straight partition wall against the sky. 
North and east a mountain towered, a 
perpendicular wall of rock, looking black- 
ly down on the Jericho plain. W^est- 
^w^ard, Bethlehem ! That night they slept 
xCLin the plain of Moab, They were timor- 
^ ously brave — women yet, and needing 
lovfe^>and husband. From a not remote 
mountain came a wolf bark. Then they 
retv close to one another in woman 
fear. They were very weary. "Lord, 
watch till dawn be come." The waters 
murmured soothingly like a caress — on, 
till dawn. The stars lit their white 
lamps. The shadows deepened. Quiet 
clothed the land and sky with peace. 




THE BOOK OF R U 1E^« 
Even their tears stopped. In the evening ^^ 
mm*k they could hear the winds whisper 
through the thickets of thorn. Then 
when night was fully come they built a 
camp fire and roasted some wheat heads 
over the perfumed flame. They talked g 
of their dead beloved and of the living 
God ; and to him they made their even- 
ing prayer : *' O God of widowed women, 
be our shelter and our peace. Do not 
forsake us, lest we die of heartache. 
Amen." 

And the fire burned low. The last 
flame expired. The glowing coals lay 
like a neglected sunset, then gray ashes 
whitened the glowing coals, and then— it 
was sunup. Morning skies shone in 
their faces. And both women laughed 
aloud — and wondered why they laughed. 
They crossed a sparkling stream margin- 
ed with zukkim, splashing across it with 
^^87 




>\ 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
their naked feet in a touch of glee, 
like happy children. They kneeled and 
washed their faces and dusky bosoms in 
the limpid waters and then they drank of 
the fountain of Jericho. With the quiet 
of the dreamless night, and the coming 
of the sunrise, and the touch of the cool- 
ing waters on lips and breast, comfort 
came and they took their journey with 
a song, a psalm of gladness. Life was 
sweet once more. God had heard their 
prayer. God*s peace was their recom- 
pense. 

The road was familiar to Naomi; 
not only because she had trod this way 
in her journey to Moab, but because 
iM)w, in sight of Jericho and its plain, she 
was on her own ground. She was Isra- 
elite. She was about to ford the Jordan 
where God had made a dusty road amid 
the flood for Israel to troop upon. So 
88 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
her words flow fast. She is telling Ruth 
what glorious things happened here. She 
spoke with pomp, as if she were in truth 
a king's daughter — ^seeing such a God 
was hers and Ruth's. The Jordan pass- 
ed, the slow ascent began toward Beth- 
lehem. In a scant six hours a horseman 
might ride from Jericho to Bethlehem, 
but these women had eager feet. They 
were going home. A lonely home, a 
bereft home, and yet, for all, a home. 
Dear Bethlehem ! ^ 

They climbed the yellow hills. They t 
looked backward and saw Nebo and 
Pisgah's height. And these women, 
whose only property was graves, talked 
of that funeral where Grod buried him he 
loved; of how no one saw Moses after 
he climbed the lordly hill, for God had 
him to himself. The woman stood and 
watched the stately moxmt, wonderful be- 






.^^^^ 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
cause from that brave height Moses, the 
mountain soul, had with hungry eyes 
scanned the Promised Land and with 
eager lips had prayed, "Let me go over 
this Jordan," and God had put his hand 
across his servant's lips and had hushed 
his prayer, but had loved him utterly, 
and had let no one come to sob at his 
funeral ; for why should there be sobbing 
when a man who is greatly loved of God 
and has wrought greatly now lies down 
and falls asleep, head fallen on the breast 
of God? God smiled him to sleep and 
kissed him to awakening. What need 
for funeral pall and mortal sobbing? God 
was with Moses; and now Moses was 
with God. 

Naomi and Ruth sat and watched 
brave, lonely, sacred Nebo, and then rose 
and climbed their hill. They hasted by 
the gorge of the brook Cherithj with its 
i 90^ ^fc 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
wild and desolate beauty. The slow vul- 
tures swam along the sky. The ground 
burnt hot against their naked feet. Their 
little remnant of com w^as exhausted, 
Their lips were parched with climbing 
and with thirst; but they were coming 
towards beautiful Bethlehem. When 
Naomi saw before her the yellow should- 
ers of a mountain silver-green with olive 
trees, her heart chimed like a psalm :^ 
"Near Bethlehem!" And when their/' 
tired feet stood on the hilltop, there stood, 
grim and majestical, Mount Moriah, and 
past it, like love realized, stood on its. 
gray hills precious Bethlehem. The 
their sad feet ran. They seemed to 
those who saw them in that springtime 
afternoon to be like romping children, 
care-free and very glad. O Bethlehem? 
Home Bethlehem! _, 

And as the sun was lowering a little 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
to watch the ripening barley fields, these 
two, spent with journey, footsore, heart- 
sore, and yet strangely heart-glad, came 
past Rachel's tomb and at last knelt be- 
side the curb of the well at Bethlehem's 
gate and with quiet laughter drank its 
cool waters; and Naomi said: **No water 
is s^veet like the w^aters from the w^ell of 
Bethlehem's gate." And Ruth nodded 
and smiled acquiescence. Hearing of 
these lonely travelers. 

From street to street the neighbors met. 
Then Naomi's loss and homesickness 
and emptiness came on her like a drench 
of rain and she sobbed: "Call me no long- 
er gladness, but bitterness. Call me not 
Naomi, but Mara." 

Hear the sacred narrative record: 
"And she said imto them, Call me not 
Naomi, call me Mara; for the Alm^hty 
hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went 

92 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
out full, and the Lord hath brought me 
home again empty." This is sorrow and 
great bereavement finding tongue and 
voice. Famine was nothing. She went 
out hungry: she comes back now with 
the famine-hunger of her heart and 
thinks she then went out full. Now for 
the first time is she hungry. Women's 
hearts are the same — a sea of love and, 
in consequence, a sea of sorrow. No, 
woman with thy sorrow, thou hast 
Bethlehem and the Almighty and thy 
daughter Ruth. Her company must be 
computed in the reckoning. Thou hast 
not come back quite empty. AA^hile she 
is beside thee and holds thy hand thy 
heart need not count itself desolate. 

And, once come to Bethlehem, Ruth 
goes out to glean along the edges of the 
barley field of Boaz! for "they came to 
Bethlehem in the beginning of barley 



^^X 






T H W^'^O^^^CJi F RUTH 
harvest." In Ruth is such modesty, 
such chasteness, such fine reserve, such 
^ |womanliness, such worth, such vision of 
Cjod, as that others do as Boaz did — love 
^ her. Once seen she is loved, and never 
fj/ forgotten. Ruth herself has cast her 
spell on Keats ; and Keats stands for the 
substance of poetic mind. He is com- 
pact of dreams. In his "Ode to the 
Nightingale," listening to her song he. 

Half in love with easeful death, 
half sobs : 

This is perhaps the self- same song that 

found a path 
Through the sad heart of Ruth when, 

sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn. 
Ruth after such a song as this, has de- 
finitely passed into eternal poetries. 

Bethlehem is at song. The reapers' 
sickles and the threshing flails make not 
such cheery music as the songs on Beth- 
94 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
lehem's streets. Boaz sings. Ruth sings. 
Naomi sings. Bethlehem sings. The 
song is a marriage hymn. O happy, 
happy Bethlehem ! 

And as Ruth sang baby Obed to 
sleep at twilight when earth walked out 
unwittingly into summer and lovely 
Bethlehem was strangely adjacent to the 
set of sun and the rising of the stars, may 
we wonder if ever before her happy 
mother eyes there came a vision of a 
throne, and a king, and a cross, and an- 
other mother holding another babe and 
he "the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisi- 
ble, the only Wise God"? And did she 
think as she sang her happy mother lull- 
aby that she, Ruth, the Moabitess, was 
ancestress of David, king, and David's 
King, the Christ Messiah? At Bethle- 
hem asleep in the hay the King, Ruth's 
King, our King, but her son! 







X,JH E BOOK OF RUTH 
O Ruth, sweet Moabitess, knew you 
that, in any happy moment of maternal 
vision far-seeing as a gift of prophecy? I 
hope she saw across the crowding years, 
dim as a dream yet certain as the sun, 
upon a windy hill, a gaunt, grim cross 
with arms spread wide and on the cross 
a Form whose face makes murky mid- 
nights light. I think she saw; for as she 
crooned her lullaby one springtime even- 
ing, when the barley harvest smell was 
in the air, her voice ached and her lulla- 
by emptied in a sob ; and her tears ran 
and spilt hot on baby Obed's face so that 
he wakened with a cry, whereat she held 
him close and sang : " I saw what seem- 
ed a sword, huge as an oak tree, and 
nailed upon the sword a face like thine, 
my babe, like thine grown into man- 
hood—like thine — and Grod's. My babe, 
my babe, my Obed, sleep, sleep." 
96 



ikiooikofa^txth 



97 





^ 



THE BOOK of RUTH 



O W it came to pass in the 
days when the judges 
ruled, that there was a 
famine in the land. And 
a certain man of Beth-le- 
hem-judah went to sojourn in the count- 
ry of Moab, he, and his wife, and his 
two sons. 

And the name of the man was 
Elimelech, and the name of his wife 
Naomi, and the name of his two sons 
Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of 
Beth-lehem-judah. And they came into 
the country of Moab, and continued 
there. 

And Elimelech Naomi's husband 
died; and she was left, and her two sons. 
And they took them wives of the 
99 i r^ 



\ 








I 



.^ 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
women of Moab ; the name of the one 
was Orpah, and the name of the other 
Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten 
years. 

And Mahlon and Chilion died also 
both of them; and the woman was left 
of her two sons and her husband. 

Then she arose with her daughters 
in law, that she might return from the 
country of Moab: for she had heard in 
the country of Moab how that the LORD 
had visited his people in giving them 
bread. 

Wherefore she went forth out of 
the place where she was, and her two 
daughters in law with her; and they 
went on the way to return unto the land 
of Judah. 

And Naomi said unto her two 
daughters in law. Go, return each to her 
Mother's house: the LORD deal kindly 
100 




"^ 



M 



mm 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
with you, as ye have dealt with the 
dead, and with me. 

The Lord grant you that ye may 
find rest, each of you in the house of her 
husband. Then she kissed them; and 
they lifted up their voice, and wept. 

And they said unto her, Surely we 
will return with thee unto thy people. 

And Naomi said, Turn again, my 
daughters : why will ye go with me ? are 
there yet any more sons in my womb, 
that they may be your husbands? 

Turn again, my daughters, go your 
way; for I am too old to have an hus- 
band. If I should say, I have hope, if I 
should have an husband also to night, 
and should also bear sons; 

Would ye tarry for them till they 
were grown? would ye stay for them 
from having husbands ? nay, my daugh- 
ters; for it grieveth me much for your 
101 



f 



^ 





I THE BOOK OF RUTh'! 





sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone 
out against me. 

And they lifted up their voice, and 
wept again: and Orpah kissed her moth- 
er in law; but Ruth clave unto her. 

And she said, Behold, thy sister in 
law is gone back unto her people, and 
unto her gods: return thou after thy 
sister in law. 

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to 
leave thee, or to return ft-om following 
after thee: for whither thou goest, I will 
go ; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge ; 
thy people shall be my people, and thy 
God my Cjod: 

Where thou diest, will I die, and 
there will I be buried: the LORD do so 
to me, and more also, if ought but death 
part thee and me. 

When she saw that she was sted- 



IIk. 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 



fastly minded to go with her, then she 
left speaking unto her. 

So they two went until they came 
to Beth-lehem. And it came to pass, 
when they were come to Beth-lehem, 
that all the city was moved about them, 
and they said. Is this Naomi? 

And she said unto them, Call me not 
Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty 
hath dealt very bitterly with me. 

I went out ftill, and the LORD hath 
brought me home again empty: why 
then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD 
hath testified against me, and the 
Almighty hath afflicted me? 

So Naomi returned, and Ruth the 
Moabitess, her daughter in law, with 
her, which returned out of the country 
of Moab : and they came to Beth-lehem 
in the beginning of barley harvest. 



\V. 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 







IB t.lH*Jl 



ND Naomi had a kinsman 
of her husband's, a mighty 
man of wealth, of the 
family of Elimelech; and 
his name was Boaz. 
And Ruth the Moabitess said unto 
Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and 
glean ears of com after him in whose 
sight I shall find grace. And she said 
unto her, Go, my daughter. 

And she went, and came, and glean- 
ed in the field after the reapers : and her 
hap was to light on a part of the field 
belonging unto Boaz, who was of the 
kindred of Elimelech. 

And, behold, Boaz came from Beth- 
lehem, and said unto the reapers, The 
Lord be with you. And they answered 
him, The LORD bless thee. 

Then said Boaz unto his servant 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
that was set over the reapers, Whose 
damsel is this? 

And the servant that was set over 
the reapers answered and said, It is the 
Moabitish damsel that came back with 
Naomi out of the country of Moab: 

And she said, I pray you, let me 
glean and gather after the reapers a- 
mong the sheaves: so she came, and 
hath continued even from the morning 
until now, that she tarried a little in the 
house. 

Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest 
thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean 
in another field, neither go from hence, 
but abide here fast by my maidens: 

Let thine eyes be on the field that 
they do reap, and go thou after them: 
have I not charged the young men that 
they shall not touch thee? and when 
thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and 
105 






THE BOOK OF RUTH 
drink of that which the young men have 
drawn. 

Then she fell on her face, and bow- 
ed herself to the ground, and said unto 
him, Why have I found grace in thine 
eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge 
of me, seeing I am a stranger? 

And Boaz answered and said unto 
her. It hath fully been shewed me, all 
that thou hast done unto thy mother in 
law since the death of thine husband: 
and how thou hast left thy father and 
thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, 
and art come unto a people which thou 
knewest not heretofore. 

The Lord recompense thy work, 
and a full reward be given thee of the 
Lord God of Israel, under whose wings 
thou art come to trust. 

Then she said, Let me find favor in 
thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast 
106 



1] 




•A1 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 

comforted me, and for that thou hast 
spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, 
though I be not like unto one of thine 
handmaidens. 

And Boaz said unto her, At meal- 
time come thou hither, and eat of the 
bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. 
And she sat beside the reapers : and he 
reached her parched com, and she did 
eat, and was sufficed, and left. 

And when she was risen up to 
glean, Boaz commanded his young men, 
saying, Let her glean even among the 
sheaves, and reproach her not: 

And let fall also some of the hand- 
fuls of purpose for her, and leave them, 
that she may glean them, and rebuke 
her not. 

So she gleaned in the field until even, 
and beat out that she had gleaned: and 
it was about an ephah of barley. 
107 







Vx^ 






THE BOOK OF RUTH 

And she took it up, and went into 
the city: and her mother in law saw 
what she had gleaned: and she brought 
forth, and gave to her that she had re- 
served after she was sufficed. 

And her mother in law said unto 
her, Where hast thou gleaned to-day? 
and where wroughtest thou? blessed be 
he that did take knowledge of thee. 
And she shewed her mother in law with 
^vhom she had wrought, and said, The 
man's name with whom I wrought to 
day is Boaz. 

And Naomi said unto her daughter 
in law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who 
hath not left off his kindness to the living 
and to the dead. And Naomi said unto 
her. The man is near of kin unto us, one 
of our next kinsmen. 

And Ruth the Moabitess said, He 
said unto me also, Thou shalt keep fast 
108 



*=^ 



ih 



^A 





I T H 



1 



V 



E BOOK OF RUTH 
by my young men, until they have end- 
ed all my harvest. 

And Naomi said unto Ruth her 
daughter in law, It is good, my daughter, 
that thou go out with his maidens, that 
they meet thee not in any other field. 

So she kept fast by the maidens of 
Boaz to glean unto the end of barley 
harvest and of wheat harvest; and dwelt 
with her mother in law. 

HEN Naomi her mother 

in law said unto her, My 

daughter, shall I not seek 

rest for thee, that it may 

be well with thee? 

And now is not Boaz of our kindred, 

with whose maidens thou wast ? Behold, 

he winnoweth barley to night in the 

threshingfloor. 

Wash thyself therefore, and anoint 
109 




^ J 







X 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and 
get thee down to the floor: but make 
not thyself known unto the man, until 
he shall have done eating and drinking. 

And it shall be, when he lieth down, 
that thou shall mark the place where he 
shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and un- 
cover his feet, and lay thee down; and 
he will tell thee what thou shalt do. 

And she said unto her. All that thou 
sayest unto me I will do, 

And she went down unto the floor, 
and did according to all that her mother 
in law bade her. 

And when Boaz had eaten and 
drunk, and his heart was merry, he went 
to lie down at the end of the heap of 
com : and she came softly, and uncover- 
ed his feet, and laid her down. 

And it came to pass at midnight, 
that the man was afraid, and turned him- 
110 



;1 




\^yki//:>. 



#/ 



^i 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
self: and, behold, a woman lay at his 
feet. 

And he said, Who art thou? And 
she answered, I am Ruth thine hand- 
maid: spread therefore thy skirt over 
thine handmaid; for thou art a near 
kinsman. 

And he said, Blessed be thou of the 
Lord, my daughter: for thou hast shew- 
ed more kindness in the latter end than 
at the beginning, inasmuch as thou fol- 
lowedst not young men, whether poor 
or rich. 

And now, my daughter, fear not; I 
will do to thee all that thou requirest: for 
all the city of my people doth know that 
thou art a virtuous woman. 

And now it is true that I am thy 
near kinsman: howbeit there is a kins- 
man nearer than I. 

Tarry this night, and it shall be in 
111 





S;>^V 




X\ 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
the morning, that if he will perform unto 
thee the part of a kinsman, well; let 
him do the kinsman's part: but if he will 
not do the part of a kinsman to thee, 
then will I do the part of a kinsman to 
thee, as the LORD liveth : lie down until 
the morning. 

And she lay at his feet until the 
morning: and she rose up before one 
could know another. And he said, Let 
it not be known that a woman came in- 
to the floor. 

Also he said. Bring the veil that thou 
hast upon thee, and hold it. And when 
she held it, he measured six measures of 
barley, and laid it on her: and she went 
into the city. 

And when she came to her mother 
in law, she said. Who art thou, my 
daughter? And she told her all that the 
man had done to her. 
112 




'^^f(?AW \Wkl7/< 



^^ 



/^>^^^X\^^ 




i^ 




THE BOOK OF RUTH 
And she said, These six measures of 
barley gave he me; for he said to me, 
Go not empty unto thy mother in law. 

Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, 
until thou know how the matter will 
fall ; for the man will not be in rest, un- 
til he have finished the thing this day. 






HEN went Boaz up to the 
gate, and sat him down 
there: and, behold, the 
kinsman of whom Boaz 
spake came by; unto 
whom he said. Ho, such a one ! turn a- 
side, sit down here. And he turned aside, 
and sat down. 

And he took ten men of the elders 
of the city, and said. Sit ye down here. 
And they sat down. 

And he said unto the kinsman, Nao- 
mi, that is come again out of the count- 
113 





THE BOOK OF RUTH 
ry of Moab, selleth a parcel of land, 
which was our brother Elimelech's : 

And I thought to advertise thee, say- 
ing, Buy it before the inhabitants, and 
before the elders of my people. If thou 
wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou 
wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I 
may know: for there is none to redeem 
it beside thee ; and I am after thee. And 
he said, I will redeem it. 

Then said Boaz, What day thou 
buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, 
thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moab- 
itess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the 
name of the dead upon his inheritance. 

And the kinsman said, I cannot re- 
deem it for myself, lest I mar mine own 
inheritance: redeem thou my right to 
thj^elf : for I cannot redeem it. 

Now this was the manner in former 
time in Israel concerning redeeming and 
114 



k) 




^ 

> 




n 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
concerning changing, for to confirm all 
things; a man plucked off his shoe, and 
gave it to his neighbour: and this was 
a testimony in Israel. 

Therefore the kinsman said unto 
Boaz, Buy it for thee. So he drew off 
his shoe. 

And Boaz said unto the elders, and 
unto all the people, Ye are witnesses thfe 
day, that I have bought all that was Eli- 
melech's, and all that was Chilion's and 
Mahlon's, of the hand of Naomi. 

Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the 
wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be 
my wife, to raise up the name of the 
dead upon his inheritance, that the name 
of the dead be not cut off from among 
his brethren, and from the gate of his 
place : ye are witnesses this day. 

And all the people that were in the 
gate, and the elders, said, ^We are wit- 
115 







% 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
nesses. The LORD make the woman 
that is come into thine house like Rachel 
and like Leah, which two did build the 
house of Israel: and do thou worthily 
in Ephratah, and be famous in Beth-le- 
hem: 

And let thy house be like the house 
of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Jud- 
ah, of the seed which the LORD shall 
give thee of this young woman. 

So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his 
wife : and when he went in unto her, the 
Lord gave her conception, and she bare 
a son. 

And the women said unto Naomi, 
Blessed be the LORD, which hath not 
left thee this day without a kinsman, 
that his name may be famous in Israel. 

And he shall be unto thee a restorer 
of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old 
age : for thy daughter in law, which lov- 

115 



-^ 




^ 



THE BOOK OF RUTH 
eth thee, which is better to thee than 
seven sons, hath bom hkn. 

And Naomi took the child, and laid 
it in her bosom, and became nurse unto 
it. 

And the women her neighbors gave 
it a name, saying. There is a son bom to 
Naomi ; and they called him Obed : he is 
the father of Jesse, the father of David. 

Now these are the generations of 
Pharez : Pharez begat Hezron. 

And Hezron begat Ram, and Ram 
begat Amminadab. 

And Amminadab begat Nahshon, 
and Nahshon begat Salmon. 

And Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz 
begat Obed. 

And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse 
begat David. 




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